The slaves would make up songs to sing while they were in the field and doing chores. These songs would help lift spirits, made the workers work more in sync, and gave them some encouragement. Also, the slaves could express emotions and criticize their white owners.
Field/Street Calls
The slaves would holler across the field and call at each other. The calls made it so the slaves could communicate but, the white owners couldn't understand them. The street hollers would yell over the field to make the slaves work together and give them encouragement.
Protest Songs
People could make songs about them protesting against something is affection everyone. The song would be fighting against a certain activity or group of people. For example, homophobes, oppression, or authority figures. These songs could be sung at protests or just to let people know what you stand for.
Structure:Call and response, repetitive refrain lines/choruses, and improvised.Connect to Genres: will be described in the video Performers: Odetta, Georgia Sea Island Singer, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bob Marley, Songs: Field/Street Calls:
Title of Song: No More, My Lord Sung Artist: Jimpson with men chopping trees Genre:Work Songs Why?: This song is relates to the Field/Street Calls genre because it about a man being in prison while he does prison work. Even though, prison nowadays isn't the like slavery, back then prison was the same thing as slavery.
Work Song:
Title of Song: More Than A Paycheck Artist: Sweet Honey In The Rock Genre:Gospel, Blues, Spoken WordsWhy?: This song relates to the Work Song genre because they use African chants in the songs. Also, the band 'Sweet Honey In The Rock' bases most of their music around struggle of justice and the civil rights movement. Even though, it is based on women, the songs can be related to everyone. Lastly, they follow traditions of African Americans like ancient lullabies of Africans.
Protest Song:
Title of Song: Get Up, Stand Up Artist: Bob Marley and the Wailers Genre: Reggae, Rock Why?: This song relates to Protest Song genre because the singers are protesting against authority/majority. They want to rebel against what people think and what they are trying to make them do.
The Events: Dred Scott Decision Dred Scott was a slave who lived with his master, an officer in the U.S Army. The master took Dred from being a slave in Missouri to being free in the state of Illinois and the Wisconsin territory. Dred Scott was free for a long period of time. The Army ordered his master back to Missouri, so he took Dred with him, back to the slave state. Soon after, his master died. Abolitionist lawyers helped Dred to sue for his freedom, they said he was free because he lived on free soil for a long period of time. The case was sent all the way to the Supreme Court. In March of 1857, Dred lost his case, the Justices on the Supreme Court decided that ‘no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S citizen, or ever had been an U.S citizen.’ This decision changed everything, Scott had no rights and had to stay a slave. This decision changed every state, even the free states. No black men were allowed to vote, even in the free states. Also, the Supreme Court decided that slavery could not be stopped in new territories and that the Missouri Compromise (1820) is unconstitutional.
Plessy vs. Ferguson Homer Adolph Plessy was a shoemaker living in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was ⅛ African-American, but other that, he was all white. He consider himself white, but Louisiana didn’t at all. When he was in his thirties, he was asked by the Citizen’s Committee to join. The Citizen’s Committee was a civil rights group made up of African Americans, Whites, and Creoles (French and Spanish mixed) they were opposed to the recent segregation laws made in Louisiana. They asked Plessy to help challenge the Separate Car Act, equal but separate train raids for African Americans and Whites. Plessy was told to sit in the White train car and tell the conductor that he is ⅛ African American, but not move. Plessy didn’t move and he was put in jail for the night. Once that happen, the Citizen’s Committee hired a lawyer by the name of Albion W. Turgee, he did a lot of civil right cases for African Americans before. A month came, it is time for Plessy’s trial and Tourgee said that Plessy’s civil right were violated for the Thirteenth and Fourteenth event. So far the judge, John Ferguson had ruled against separate train cars for interstate travel because different states had different views on segregation, John Ferguson ruled against Plessy because he thought that states had he right to set their own segregation rules in their state. Tourgee had took the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court, they also supported Ferguson’s ruling. In 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson case was looked over by the U.S Supreme Court, they ruled against Plessy with eight people. One of the judges, Judge Henry Brown wrote: tThat [the Separate Car Act] does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery...is too clear for argument...A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races...The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. (Robinson, Susan. (n.d.). Plessy vs ferguson.)
W.E.B DuBois and Double Consciousness
"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self... " - ‘Of Our Spiritual Strivings’ from The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B DuBois.
The Music:
History:
- Work Songs
- The slaves would make up songs to sing while they were in the field and doing chores. These songs would help lift spirits, made the workers work more in sync, and gave them some encouragement. Also, the slaves could express emotions and criticize their white owners.
- Field/Street Calls
- The slaves would holler across the field and call at each other. The calls made it so the slaves could communicate but, the white owners couldn't understand them. The street hollers would yell over the field to make the slaves work together and give them encouragement.
- Protest Songs
- People could make songs about them protesting against something is affection everyone. The song would be fighting against a certain activity or group of people. For example, homophobes, oppression, or authority figures. These songs could be sung at protests or just to let people know what you stand for.
Structure: Call and response, repetitive refrain lines/choruses, and improvised. Connect to Genres: will be described in the videoPerformers: Odetta, Georgia Sea Island Singer, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bob Marley,
Songs:
Field/Street Calls:
Title of Song: No More, My Lord Sung
Artist: Jimpson with men chopping trees
Genre: Work Songs
Why?:
This song is relates to the Field/Street Calls genre because it about a man being in prison while he does prison work. Even though, prison nowadays isn't the like slavery, back then prison was the same thing as slavery.
Work Song:
Title of Song: More Than A Paycheck
Artist: Sweet Honey In The Rock
Genre: Gospel, Blues, Spoken WordsWhy?:
This song relates to the Work Song genre because they use African chants in the songs. Also, the band 'Sweet Honey In The Rock' bases most of their music around struggle of justice and the civil rights movement. Even though, it is based on women, the songs can be related to everyone. Lastly, they follow traditions of African Americans like ancient lullabies of Africans.
Protest Song:
Title of Song: Get Up, Stand Up
Artist: Bob Marley and the Wailers
Genre: Reggae, Rock
Why?:
This song relates to Protest Song genre because the singers are protesting against authority/majority. They want to rebel against what people think and what they are trying to make them do.
The Events:
Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott was a slave who lived with his master, an officer in the U.S Army. The master took Dred from being a slave in Missouri to being free in the state of Illinois and the Wisconsin territory. Dred Scott was free for a long period of time.
The Army ordered his master back to Missouri, so he took Dred with him, back to the slave state. Soon after, his master died. Abolitionist lawyers helped Dred to sue for his freedom, they said he was free because he lived on free soil for a long period of time. The case was sent all the way to the Supreme Court.
In March of 1857, Dred lost his case, the Justices on the Supreme Court decided that ‘no slave or descendant of a slave could be a U.S citizen, or ever had been an U.S citizen.’ This decision changed everything, Scott had no rights and had to stay a slave. This decision changed every state, even the free states. No black men were allowed to vote, even in the free states. Also, the Supreme Court decided that slavery could not be stopped in new territories and that the Missouri Compromise (1820) is unconstitutional.
Homer Adolph Plessy was a shoemaker living in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was ⅛ African-American, but other that, he was all white. He consider himself white, but Louisiana didn’t at all. When he was in his thirties, he was asked by the Citizen’s Committee to join. The Citizen’s Committee was a civil rights group made up of African Americans, Whites, and Creoles (French and Spanish mixed) they were opposed to the recent segregation laws made in Louisiana. They asked Plessy to help challenge the Separate Car Act, equal but separate train raids for African Americans and Whites. Plessy was told to sit in the White train car and tell the conductor that he is ⅛ African American, but not move. Plessy didn’t move and he was put in jail for the night. Once that happen, the Citizen’s Committee hired a lawyer by the name of Albion W. Turgee, he did a lot of civil right cases for African Americans before. A month came, it is time for Plessy’s trial and Tourgee said that Plessy’s civil right were violated for the Thirteenth and Fourteenth event. So far the judge, John Ferguson had ruled against separate train cars for interstate travel because different states had different views on segregation, John Ferguson ruled against Plessy because he thought that states had he right to set their own segregation rules in their state. Tourgee had took the case to the Louisiana Supreme Court, they also supported Ferguson’s ruling. In 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson case was looked over by the U.S Supreme Court, they ruled against Plessy with eight people. One of the judges, Judge Henry Brown wrote: tThat [the Separate Car Act] does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery...is too clear for argument...A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races...The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. (Robinson, Susan. (n.d.). Plessy vs ferguson.)
W.E.B DuBois and Double Consciousness
"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self... " - ‘Of Our Spiritual Strivings’ from The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B DuBois.
The Video: